tsaomengde:

howtogrowthefuckup:

How to Write a Goddamn Check

I get it, you have a debit card. Everything’s electronic, checks are a thing of the past. And yet you still gotta write them. Sucks, I know, but now at least you won’t have to stare at each line blankly wondering what they’re for.

In case you’re someone born after let’s say 2000 or so and you never had to worry about money and never saw a check, I included a picture above for reference. I numbered it to correspond with each step so you can follow along.

1. This is where you write the date. Write it however you want, I don’t care. December. Dec. 12. Just write it down so we humans and the robots at the bank can understand it.

2. This is where you write the name of the person to whom you are giving the check. Don’t worry about getting their name exactly right (if you know him by Tim, you can write Tim instead of Timothy) but do try to spell it correctly. You should also learn how to spell people’s names because they’re going to see this and might give you a lecture on how you’ve known them five years and can’t even spell their name.

3. Write the amount here, in number form. Mind your decimals, because yeah, they’re required. This is how you know the difference between $10.00 and $1000.

4. Don’t worry, though, because there’s a safe guard. Write out the amount from #3 on the #4 line. BUT if the amounts on 3 and 4 don’t match, your check will be invalid. That means your electricity or your rent don’t get paid. (Also, side note: 40 isn’t spelled fourty.)

5. Considering how few checks get written these days, this line isn’t really necessary. It’s just to remind you what you paid for with this check. If you write one check a month for rent, I sure as hell hope you know where this money went. But if you want to prove you paid your rent that month, make sure to write “December Rent” here. This is actually more effective now with digital banking than it was when we had to balance check books. Who knew?

6. Sign your name here. This is the easiest part of the whole process; you’ve been practicing since preschool. Write down whatever name your account is under. On a real check, this is really easy, because your name will be in the upper left corner, in case you forgot it.

That’s it! Your check is written and now you can give it away to someone and in a few days (or whenever they get around to it), the money will come out of your bank. As a tip, though, remember to keep this in your budget until it’s processed, because you don’t want a $200 check sneaking up on you.

I process thousands upon thousands of checks every single day, doing data entry for a lockbox site, and let me tell you what not to do with each area of the check if you want your bill to be processed.

1) It’s hard to fuck up the date, but if you accidentally put in the wrong year – like, you wish it were still 2015 and the desire takes control of your hand and writes 2015 on your check – we aren’t processing it.

2) If you are paying a bill or rent or something that is going to a particular company, the payee is very important.  Be absolutely sure you are making the check out to a name that the company actually accepts.  If you are writing a check to Peoples Gas and you make it out to “People Gas,” it’ll be fine, though we will laugh at you giving money to gas that comes out of people.  If you make that same check out to “People,” or “Gas,” it won’t be.

3) This is the courtesy amount.  This is included for ease of reading.  If you fuck this up – if it’s different than 4, which is the legal amount, whether because you just write a different amount or it’s straight-up illegible, we will go off of the legal amount.  If the legal amount is for a hundred dollars, and the courtesy amount is for $120, then your ass is getting charged a hundred dollars and your bill is probably not paid in full.

4) This is, as I mentioned above, the legal amount.  If you misspell one or more of the numbers involved, we’ll still process the check, especially if we can compare it to the courtesy amount.  If you write the amount in Spanish or another language, we will go grab one of the people who speaks that language, confirm the legal amount matches the courtesy amount, and process the check.  If you make the legal amount out as a math equation like that xkcd asshole, we will not process your check and your bill will not be paid, because don’t be an asshole.

5) The memo line is where you write your account number.  I don’t care if the account number is also on the little slip of paper that came in the mail telling you what you owe (what we call a coupon).  Write the account number on there.  Write it legibly.  The USPS, God bless them, are well-meaning but by and large incompetent doofs who accidentally damage mail all the time.  Writing your account number so we have two places to reference it is courteous and wise.  If you don’t have an account number, write your invoice number.  If you don’t have either of these things, write what the check is for.  Don’t waste the memo line!

6) Yes, signing a check is easy.  Signing a check well is hard.  Look below here.  You see those numbers?  They are what we call the MICR Line.  From left to right, they are the routing number for your financial institution, your account number at your financial institution, and the number of your check.  If you sign your name like you charge people money for it at conventions and your signature is so big and loopy that it slices through the MICR, our software will not read it right and I will have to check it manually.  Your goofy-ass overwrought signatures cost us thousands of dollars in wasted man-hours every year.

Finally, if you decide to get vanity checks that have Wonder Woman or the Starship Enterprise or something like that, good for you!  They often make me smile.  But for God’s sake, don’t choose a vanity image that makes your check impossible to read.